Why You Must Watch ‘Black Mirror’: “The Waldo Moment” This Weekend

You might remember that everyone was buzzing about a British dystopian sci-fi series called Black Mirror last December. The critically acclaimed show had made its way onto Netflix and was making everyone’s skin crawl with its cleverly nascent horror stories about the way technology and media was on the verge of bringing out the very worst in us.

Now that things are starting to ramp up in the 2016 Presidential primaries, it’s the perfect time to revisit (or finally get to watching) “The Waldo Moment.” While many Black Mirror episodes like to posit what would happen if technology leaped ahead ever so slightly, “The Waldo Moment” asks how far we are from electing a corporate-controlled media monster into power.

Basically, a raunchy teddy bear cartoon character named Waldo gets into a televised kerfluffle with a conservative Member of Parliament (played by Outlander’s Tobias Menzies). When ratings shoot through the roof, network executives get the clever idea to get Waldo to run against this politician for his seat. Waldo soon finds popularity by mouthing off on his rivals and eschewing political correctness for shocking statements.

When I first wrote about Black Mirror, “The Waldo Moment” didn’t really impress me as much as some of the show’s other harrowing entries. After all, Stephen Colbert famously did launch a Super PAC for a bid at the presidency in 2008, so it didn’t seem that threatening a concept. In light of the recent media circus surrounding the first two rounds of Republican Presidential Debates, however, “The Waldo Moment” is worth revisiting. The biggest headlines from last night’s Cleveland debate don’t have to do with the candidate’s opinions on policy, but with the fact that commercial real estate titan and former reality TV star Donald Trump made misogynistic comments.

Black Mirror is a show that challenges us to reappraise our world, and “The Waldo Moment” urges us to be wary of giving our power away to people who say the things we want to hear. That’s a sentiment that applies to both sides of the aisle and to all the candidates up for our vote in 2016. [Stream The Waldo Moment on Netflix]